{"id":2931,"date":"2013-04-12T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T17:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/"},"modified":"2013-04-12T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T17:13:00","slug":"vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/","title":{"rendered":"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the \u201cPontifical Hero Award\u201d for his courage.<\/p>\n

\tCiaran Finn-Lynch, 14, was the second person to receive the award, and he made the trip from Northern Ireland to the Vatican to receive it.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cCiaran is a shining example of what this result has shown,\u201d said his father, Paul Finn, in an April 12 interview with CNA.<\/p>\n

\tHis mother, Colleen Finn, said \u201cwe need to have faith in God to get through all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThis has made our faith stronger because we need more and more prayers all the time,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\tCiaran was born with long-segment tracheal stenosis, a condition that resulted in a narrow windpipe and made it hard for him to breathe.<\/p>\n

\tHe had a major transplant surgery to rebuild his trachea when he was two years-old.<\/p>\n

\tDoctors placed metal stents to hold his windpipe open and he went without any major issues until he was 10 years-old.<\/p>\n

\tOne day after school, the stents that had been placed in his windpipe started to cut into his aorta, the main blood vessel coming out of his heart.<\/p>\n

\tHe was taken to intensive care at Belfast Hospital and then later transferred to London\u2019s Great Ormond Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe had several operations but he had more bleeding from his stents,\u201d said Doctor Paolo De Coppi, head of the surgery unit at University College London\u2019s Institute of Child Health, during the April 12 morning session of the conference.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe leader of our team didn\u2019t know what to do next, but an option was to do an operation done before on an adult in Barcelona. But we didn\u2019t have the time to do that,\u201d De Coppi explained.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cBut we did something similar and it was a quite difficult operation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\tThe operation involved taking a donor trachea and seeding it with stem cells taken from Ciaran\u2019s bone marrow.<\/p>\n

\tThe result of the procedure was that after six months, his trachea looked almost normal.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cCiaran is doing really well and I think he has a chance to become a rock star, since he plays the drums so well,\u201d De Coppi commented after showing a video of Ciaran playing with a band.<\/p>\n

\tCiaran told CNA that it felt good to receive the award and that he was happy with his life.<\/p>\n

\tHis father noted that the stem cells \u201chave been a great contribution to Ciaran\u2019s procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWhat we\u2019ve heard here these last couple of days (at the conference) has been amazing, knowing they\u2019re talking about building other organs,\u201d Paul Finn said.<\/p>\n

\tCiaran\u2019s mother noted that she was happy that her son is not on any medication, since the operation used his own cells, preventing the need for anti-rejection drugs.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cYou just have to keep going on for him, and you can\u2019t show that you\u2019re scared or teary and you just have to put a brave face on,\u201d said Colleen.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\nVatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/\",\"name\":\"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\"},\"description\":\"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic News\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\",\"name\":\"CNA Daily News\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"CNA Daily News\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant","description":"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant","og_description":"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/","og_site_name":"Catholic News","article_published_time":"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA"}],"author":"CNA Daily News","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"CNA Daily News","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/","name":"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-12T17:13:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1"},"description":"Vatican City, Apr 12, 2013 \/ 11:13 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- During the Second International Adult Stem Cell conference at the Vatican, a boy who had his windpipe replaced with one grown using his own stem cells won the “Pontifical Hero Award” f...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/04\/vatican-honors-boy-for-courage-during-trachea-transplant\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vatican honors boy for courage during trachea transplant"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/","name":"Catholic News","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1","name":"CNA Daily News","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"CNA Daily News"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1031"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}